Sheldon Adelson: We Should Nuke Iran

American Jewish billionaire Sheldon Adelson is pretty sick and tired of President Obama’s bumbling foreign policy, especially his failed policy with Iran. In fact, he thinks that the U.S. should launch a nuclear bomb into the Iranian desert and then warn Tehran that the next one will be right down their throats in their capitol city.

Adelson was speaking on a panel at a Yeshiva University in New York discussing foreign policy.

Moderator Rabbi Shmuley Boteach asked Adelson whether or not the US should negotiate with Iran to try and get it to cease its uranium enrichment program.

“What are we going to negotiate about?” Adelson asked.

Adelson, the publisher of Israel Hayom newspaper, then proposed a scenario. What if the USA launched a nuke into the Iranian desert? And then used that as a warning to Tehran.

“Then you say, ‘See! The next one is in the middle of Tehran. So, we mean business. You want to be wiped out? Go ahead and take a tough position and continue with your nuclear development. You want to be peaceful? Just reverse it all, and we will guarantee you that you can have a nuclear power plant for electricity purposes, energy purposes.'”

Adelson went on to agree with Botech that it would be a “tremendous demonstration of American strength,” and told him, “It’s the only thing they understand.”

Adelson, one of Mitt Romney’s biggest donors in 2012, criticized Obama’s weak negotiations consisting of telling Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions and in return Obama would loosen US sanctions against the mad Mullahs. “What is that, a game of chicken, who’s going to blink first?” Adelson asked.

So, what do you think? Is this just too provocative? Or is Adelson right?

Once again, the neo-cons demonstrate that they care more about Israel than the United States. Politics would be better if Mr. Adelson kept his donations to himself rather than causing Repubilcans to adopt stupid positions just to get some of that money.

warnertoddhuston

You don’t even know what a neo con is, do you?

Brett Buck

Like most parrots, he doesn’t understand the words. “Neocon, Teabagger, Pieces of Eight SQUAWK”. Thats the sort of thing that goes over great at DU and with the Kos Kiddies, doesn’t have to make sense, just spew the right words.

Commander_Chico

I know, an ex-Trotskyite who wants the USA to fight wars all over the place.

Brett Buck

Good Example! Polly want a cracker?

jim_m

Obviously you missed the part where Adelson is Jewish. What a dolt! I am sure that has a lot to do with his position on Israel. And I don’t suppose that you believe that rich lefties should stay out of politics do you? The world would be a better place if Soros would use his billions to feed the hungry rather than force leftist bullshit on Americans.

Commander_Chico

I object to your suggestion that Jewish Americans should be more loyal to a foreign country than the USA. Henry Kissinger would also object.

jim_m

i do say that they should be, I say that if they are there is a readily apparent explanation for it.

Commander_Chico

So is it OK that Adelson puts Israel first and pumps hundreds of millions of dollars into US politics?

It’s ridiculous on its face, but then there’s this: A modern nuclear explosion would create a huge environmental radiation catastrophe dwarfing Chernobyl even if it landed in the middle of nowhere. I don’t know which way the prevailing winds blow from there but you can bet a friendly country is downwind, maybe even Israel.

Commander_Chico

Actually, not necessarily more than Chernobyl, if it was an airburst. Ground detonations in the megaton range would produce significant radioactive fallout.

Probably a lot less dirty than Chernobyl, even if it were a ground burst. Chernobyl was nasty and a long-term (quite a few days) event.

With a nuke, at least the worst is over relatively quickly. (Sucks to be nearby, though…)

jim_m

I agree that the idea is idiotic and dangerous, however it would not be a worse catastrophe than Chernobyl. Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not see the same radiation issues as Chernobyl mainly because Chernobyl churned massive amounts of radioactive ash into the air which settled in the area contaminating the ground.

Brucehenry

Yes perhaps you are right. But a slightly-less-bad-than-Chernobyl environmental catastrophe would be a public relations catastrophe WORSE than Chernobyl. Chernobyl, after all, WAS an accident.

Hey, I think on a 1-10 scale of bad ideas such a thing hits around 38, possibly 40. The only time I think WE should use one is if someone else uses one on us or our allies, and then loudly takes the credit for it.

So tell me, genius, if another country exploded a nuke in the Mojave or something, and the blast hurt no one and there was no radiation damage as a result, would we “get the message” and bend to their wishes? Or would we regard it as an act of war and react accordingly?

jim_m

Still different than lobbing a nuke deliberately, to “send a message.”

Yep. It is so much easier to blow up an aspirin factory with a cruise missile if you want to send a message,

Ah yes! The Gordian knot. Continue to “negotiate” with the mullahs, while they build their bomb. “Negotiation” has gotten us a lot in the last several years, hasn’t it? Then you’ve got King Barack, essentially shooting his mouth off by proxy about Stuxnet. Never did find out who “leaked” that, did we?

Dropping a bomb, even for “demonstration” purposes is going overboard. “Boots on the ground” isn’t going to happen. We had a chance two years ago when Iranians were agitated by a stolen election. King Barack screwed that up as well. All we have at the moment is to totally isolate Iran from trade with the rest of the world. Unfortunately, you’d need a real leader to get that accomplished.

Guess we’re screwed right now.

Commander_Chico

Yeah, we’re screwed, we only have about 7000 nuclear weapons and some sophisticated delivery systems.

GarandFan

As I said, given our current Dear Leader, we’re screwed.

Commander_Chico

Just think where we’d be if Romney was president. He was dancing like a monkey to this clown Adelson’s tune for money.

Jwb10001

That is just plain ignorant. May be the most stupid comment you’ve ever made here and that’s saying something.

Not as many as we used to. Most of the Minuteman system is decommissioned, as well as Peacekeepers. Alert facilities have been dismantled – when I visited a base I used to be stationed at there was no sign of the building and looking at it from Google Maps they tore up the Alert pad.

The triad isn’t quite like it used to be.

Commander_Chico

Brings to mind what Admiral Fallon said in 2008:

“This constant drumbeat of conflict…is not helpful and not useful. I expect that there will be no war, and that is what we ought to be working for. We ought to try to do our utmost to create different conditions.”

What America needs, Fallon says, is a “combination of strength and willingness to engage.” . . . .

. . . . . And if it comes to war?

“Get serious,” the admiral says. “These guys are ants. When the time comes, you crush them.”

“combination of strength and willingness to engage.” – I think we’re seriously depleting the former, and lacking the latter.

Obama’s not going to take any activity that might imperil his ‘legacy’ of peace. Actually, I think he’s just almost completely indifferent tending towards hostile towards the US – and anything that upsets his golf game is to be ignored if possible.

Commander_Chico

There is no reason to be actively hostile to Iran right now. There is an opening. The War Lobby is not acting in behalf of the interests of the USA.

Chico is holding out for Iran to develop the bomb and nuke Israel. I expect in that event Chico will be dancing in the streets and handing out candy.

JWH

Adelson now says it was hyperbole.

Commander_Chico

He’s a casino owner – including a casino in Macau. Just think of the levels of corruption and collusion with the Chinese government that requires.

Paul Hooson

No. The new president of Iran is something of a reformer, who actually offered good wishes to Jews worldwide and who live in Iran on their New Years. I think the U.S. needs to give him the opportunity to become the Iranian “Mikhail Gorbachev” who gently moves his country into reforms and not undermine his efforts with situations that could cause his political role to be undermined where some hardliners take control again.

warnertoddhuston

Reformer. That’s rich.

Paul Hooson

In all due respect to you, Warner, I summit that Hassan Rouhani’s book, “National Security And Nuclear Diplomacy” took on a decided more open stance towards nuclear nonproliferation than the hardliners in Iran really wanted to hear where many hardliners are distrustful of Rouhani’s more moderate path towards reform and a more open approach to the West. The Obama foreign policy has been more hardline than I had expected, but I’m hopeful that relations between the two nations can move towards some healing in the next few years, and defuse these nuclear tensions with military conflict. Former UK Foreign Minister Jack Straw believes that the West can do business with Rouhani, which is much what Margaret Thatcher once said of Soviet reformer Mikhail Gorbachev. The West has an opportunity here to have a dialogue with a more peaceful cleric than dealing with the extremist Ahmadinejad, who only meant a path to war. Iran doesn’t want a war it will lose. This is a pragmatic leader here unlike Ahmadinejad.

This is just like when Reagan nuked Libya back in the mid-1980’s and when Truman nuked Russia during the Korean War. Oh, right. In any event, suffice it to say that money can’t buy brain power and while that particular sort of rhetoric plays well among the GED crowd on talk radio and the Internet in reality it fails the basic cognition test. That all said, it goes without saying that we along of course with the Israelis should engage in all sorts of endeavors — military, financial, covert espionage, assassinations, diplomacy, etc. — to make sure Iran never obtains nuclear weapons. But since we’ve devolved into a de facto banana republic the Israelis for all practical purposes are on their own. I don’t envy them.

Constitution First

When (not if) Iran produces a nuke, it will be used.
All this flatulence about fallout (from a preemptive strike) and Israeli loyalties are noise.

Iran must not produce a nuke, rather light one off in the deserts of the ME than in NYC because you know that is and has always been ground zero.
Now if the Mullahs promise to only nuke DC, I might compromise…